The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 28

I thought mine enemies had been but Man, But Spirits may be leagued with them--all Earth Abandons--Heaven forgets me;--in the dearth 200 Of such defence the Powers of Evil can-- It may be--tempt me further,--and prevail Against the outworn creature they a.s.sail.

Why in this furnace is my spirit proved, Like steel in tempering fire? because I loved?

Because I loved what not to love, and see, Was more or less than mortal, and than me.

IX.

I once was quick in feeling--that is o'er;-- My scars are callous, or I should have dashed My brain against these bars, as the sun flashed 210 In mockery through them;--- If I bear and bore The much I have recounted, and the more Which hath no words,--'t is that I would not die And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie Which snared me here, and with the brand of shame Stamp Madness deep into my memory, And woo Compa.s.sion to a blighted name, Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim.

No--it shall be immortal!--and I make A future temple of my present cell, 220 Which nations yet shall visit for my sake.[bi]

While thou, Ferrara! when no longer dwell The ducal chiefs within thee, shall fall down, And crumbling piecemeal view thy hearthless halls, A Poet's wreath shall be thine only crown,-- A Poet's dungeon thy most far renown, While strangers wonder o'er thy unpeopled walls!

And thou, Leonora!--thou--who wert ashamed That such as I could love--who blushed to hear To less than monarchs that thou couldst be dear, 230 Go! tell thy brother, that my heart, untamed By grief--years--weariness--and it may be A taint of that he would impute to me-- From long infection of a den like this, Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss,-- Adores thee still;--and add--that when the towers And battlements which guard his joyous hours Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot, Or left untended in a dull repose, This--this--shall be a consecrated spot! 240 But _Thou_--when all that Birth and Beauty throws Of magic round thee is extinct--shalt have One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave.[188]

No power in death can tear our names apart, As none in life could rend thee from my heart.[bj]

Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate To be entwined[189] for ever--but too late![190]

FOOTNOTES:

[173] {141}[A MS. of the _Gerusalemme_ is preserved and exhibited at Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.]

[174] [The original MS. of this poem is dated, "The Apennines, April 20, 1817."]

[175] {143}[The MS. of the _Lament of Ta.s.so_ corresponds, save in three lines where alternate readings are superscribed, _verbatim et literatim_ with the text. A letter dated August 21, 1817, from G. Polidori to John Murray, with reference to the translation of the _Lament_ into Italian, and a dedicatory letter (in Polidori's handwriting) to the Earl of Guilford, dated August 3, 1817, form part of the same volume.]

[176] [In a letter written to his friend Scipio Gonzaga ("Di prizione in Sant' Anna, questo mese di mezzio l'anno 1579"), Ta.s.so exclaims, "Ah, wretched me! I had designed to write, besides two epic poems of most n.o.ble argument, four tragedies, of which I had formed the plan. I had schemed, too, many works in prose, on subjects the most lofty, and most useful to human life; I had designed to unite philosophy with eloquence, in such a manner that there might remain of me an eternal memory in the world. Alas! I had expected to close my life with glory and renown; but now, oppressed by the burden of so many calamities, I have lost every prospect of reputation and of honour. The fear of perpetual imprisonment increases my melancholy; the indignities which I suffer augment it; and the squalor of my beard, my hair, and habit, the sordidness and filth, exceedingly annoy me. Sure am I, that, if she who so little has corresponded to my attachment--if she saw me in such a state, and in such affliction--she would have some compa.s.sion on me."--_Lettere di Torouato Ta.s.so_, 1853, ii. 60.]

[177] {144}[Compare--

"The second of a tenderer sadder mood, Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem."

_Prophecy of Dante_, Canto IV. lines 136, 137.]

[178] [Ta.s.so's imprisonment in the Hospital of Sant' Anna lasted from March, 1579, to July, 1586. The _Gerusalemme_ had been finished many years before. He sent the first four cantos to his friend Scipio Gonzaga, February 17, and the last three on October 4, 1575 (_Lettere di Torquato Ta.s.so_, 1852, i. 55-117). A mutilated first edition was published in 1580 by "Orazio _alias_ Celio de' Malespini, avventuriere intrigante" (Solerti's _Vita, etc._, 1895, i. 329).]

[179] [So, too, Gibbon was overtaken by a "sober melancholy" when he had finished the last line of the last page of the _Decline and Fall_ on the night of June 27, 1787.]

[180] {145}[Not long after his imprisonment, Ta.s.so appealed to the mercy of Alfonso, in a canzone of great beauty, ... and ... in another ode to the princesses, whose pity he invoked in the name of their own mother, who had herself known, if not the like horrors, the like solitude of imprisonment, and bitterness of soul, made a similar appeal. (See _Life of Ta.s.so_, by John Black, 1810, ii. 64, 408.) Black prints the canzone in full; Solerti (_Vita, etc._, i. 316-318) gives selections.]

[181] {146}["For nearly the first year of his confinement Ta.s.so endured all the horrors of a solitary sordid cell, and was under the care of a gaoler whose chief virtue, although he was a poet and a man of letters, was a cruel obedience to the commands of his prince.... His name was Agostino Mosti.... Ta.s.so says of him, in a letter to his sister, 'ed usa meco ogni sorte di rigore ed inumanita.'"--Hobhouse, _Historical Ill.u.s.trations, etc_., 1818, pp. 20, 21, note 1.

Ta.s.so, in a letter to Angelo Grillo, dated June 16, 1584 (Letter 288, _Le Lettere, etc_., ii. 276), complains that Mosti did not interfere to prevent him being molested by the other inmates, disturbed in his studies, and treated disrespectfully by the governor's subordinates. In the letter to his sister Cornelia, from which Hobhouse quotes, the allusion is not to Mosti, but, according to Solerti, to the Cardinal Luigi d'Este. Elsewhere (Letter 133, _Lettere_, ii. 88, 89) Ta.s.so describes Agostino Mosti as a rigorous and zealous Churchman, but far too cultivated and courteous a gentleman to have exercised any severity towards him _proprio motu_, or otherwise than in obedience to orders.]

[182] {147}[It is highly improbable that Ta.s.so openly indulged, or secretly nourished, a consuming pa.s.sion for Leonora d'Este, and it is certain that the "Sister of his Sovereign" had nothing to do with his being shut up in the Hospital of Sant' Anna. That poet and princess had known each other for over thirteen years, that the princess was seven years older than the poet, and, in March, 1579, close upon forty-two years of age, are points to be considered; but the fact that she died in February, 1581, and that Ta.s.so remained in confinement for five years longer, is a stronger argument against the truth of the legend. She was a beautiful woman, his patroness and benefactress, and the theme of sonnets and canzoni; but it was not for her "sweet sake" that Ta.s.so lost either his wits or his liberty.]

[183] Compare--

"I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name."

[184] {148}[Compare the following lines from the canzone ent.i.tled, "La Prima di Tre Sorelle Scritte a Madaroa Leonora d'Este ... 1567:"--

"E certo il primo d che'l bel sereno Delia tua fronte agli occhi miei s'offerse E vidi armato spaziarvi Amore, Se non che riverenza allor converse, E Meraviglia in fredda selce il seno, Ivi peria con doppia morte il core; Ma parte degli strali, e dell' ardore Sentii pur anco entro 'l gelato marmo."]

[185] {149}[Ariosto (_Sat._ 7, Terz. 53) complains that his father chased him "not with spurs only, but with darts and lances, to turn over old texts," etc.; but Ta.s.so was a studious and dutiful boy, and, though he finally deserted the law for poetry, and "crossed" his father's wishes and intentions, he took his own course reluctantly, and without any breach of decorum. But, perhaps, the following translations from the _Rinaldo,_ which Black supplies in his footnotes (i. 41. 97), suggested this picture of a "poetic child" at variance with the authorities:--

"Now hasting thence a verdant mead he found, Where flowers of fragrant smell adorned the ground; Sweet was the scene, and here from human eyes Apart he sits, and thus he speaks mid sighs."

Canto I. stanza xviii.

"Thus have I sung in youth's aspiring days Rinaldo's pleasing plains and martial praise: While other studies slowly I pursued Ere twice revolved nine annual suns I viewed; Ungrateful studies, whence oppressed I groaned, A burden to myself and to the world unknown.

But this first-fruit of new awakened powers!

Dear offspring of a few short studious hours!

Thou infant volume child of fancy born Where Brenta's waves the sunny meads adorn."

Canto XII. stanza xc.]

[bh] {150}_My mind like theirs adapted to its grave_.--[MS.]

[186] ["Nor do I lament," wrote Ta.s.so, shortly after his confinement, "that my heart is deluged with almost constant misery, that my head is always heavy and often painful, that my sight and hearing are much impaired, and that all my frame is become spare and meagre; but, pa.s.sing all this with a short sigh, what I would bewail is the infirmity of my mind.... My mind sleeps, not thinks; my fancy is chill, and forms no pictures; my negligent senses will no longer furnish the images of things; my hand is sluggish in writing, and my pen seems as if it shrunk from the office. I feel as if I were chained in all my operations, and as if I were overcome by an unwonted numbness and oppressive stupor."--_Opere_, Venice, 1738, viii. 258, 263.]

[187] [In a letter to Maurizio Cataneo, dated December 25, 1585, Ta.s.so gives an account of his sprite (_folletto_): "The little thief has stolen from me many crowns.... He puts all my books topsy-turvy (_mi mette tutti i libri sottosopra_), opens my chest and steals my keys, so that I can keep nothing." Again, December 30, with regard to his hallucinations he says, "Know then that in addition to the wonders of the Folletto ... I have many nocturnal alarms. For even when awake I have seemed to behold small flames in the air, and sometimes my eyes sparkle in such a manner, that I dread the loss of sight, and I have ...

seen sparks issue from them."--Letters 454, 456, _Le Lettere_, 1853, ii.

475, 479.]

[bi] {151}

/ _nations yet_ _Which_ <> _shall visit for my sake_.--[MS.]

_after days_ /

[188] {152}["Ta.s.so, notwithstanding the criticisms of the Cruscanti, would have been crowned in the Capitol, but for his death," Reply to _Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_ (Ravenna, March 15, 1820), _Letters_, 1900, iv. Appendix IX. p. 487.]

[bj]

/ _wrench_ _As none in life could_ <> _thee from my heart_.--[MS.]

_wring_ /

[189] [Compare--

"From Life's commencement to its slow decline We are entwined."

_Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xvi. lines 6, 7, _vide ante_, p. 62.]

[190] [The Apennines, April 20, 1817.]

BEPPO:

A VENETIAN STORY.